2 In William Winterbotham's An Historical, Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the American United States, &c. (London, 1795) there was a discussion of the feasibility of a canal between the Delaware and the Raritan.
In 1862 he published a memoir, Intorno alle strie degli spettri stellari, which indicated the feasibility of a physical classification of the stars; and on the 5th of August 1864 discovered the gaseous composition of comets by submitting to prismatic analysis the light of one then visible.
This result, though widely inaccurate, came much nearer to the truth than any previously obtained; and it instructively illustrated the feasibility of concerted astronomical operations at distant parts of the earth.
